Filed to story: Healing My Disabled Husband Novel
He was currently sitting inside the Hayden family camp, proposing to Ben.
In the near future, he will be the one proposing to the Hayden family.
Given Ben’s personality, it would be good enough if he didn’t seek revenge when the opportunity arose.
It was impossible to provide him with support.
At this moment, River even felt that Patrick and Ben did not have it as bad as him today. He was the most miserable one.
Although Nathalie was a highly acclaimed celebrity, living in the spotlight and always being the center of attention, she remained humble and grounded.
But at this moment, she really can’t stand these gazes.
Therefore, Nathalie decisively pulled Emanuel up and said, “You guys continue to discuss my brother and sister-in-law’s marriage. As for us two, we will solve our own problems first.”
After saying that, Nathalie grabbed Emanuel and ran out.
Nathalie ran forward with all her might.
She was never good at running, but she was okay with other sports. Whenever she ran, she just can’t keep up.
Therefore, after only running a few hundred meters, Nathalie was already out of breath.
Emanuel was pulled over by her, and he didn’t even feel like he had just been running when he saw
Nathalie panting.
Nathalie looked up at Emanuel and said, “Is it my fault? Who doesn’t go for a run every now and then?
I’m just not good at it, so what?”
“It’s okay,” Emanuel replied. “I’ll carry you.”
Nathalie’s eyes widened in surprise as she was lifted into his arms before she could even react.
Looking at her, Emanuel asked, “Where do you want to run to?”
Nathalie was dumbfounded. She didn’t want to experience running; she just didn’t want to stay cooped up in the room.
Tapping her foot impatiently, Nathalie said, “Put me down.”
Emanuel complied obediently. Whatever Nathalie wanted him to do, he would do.
Looking around nervously, Nathalie spotted a bush and pulled Emanuel towards it.
Despite their tall statures, they both managed to squeeze into the low-lying shrubbery.
Nathalie sat down on the ground without hesitation and when she saw that Emanuel wasn’t moving either, she pulled him down beside her.
Nathalie and Emanuel sat face to face, and Nathalie asked, “Do you really like me?”
Emanuel replied, “Yes.”
Nathalie asked, “Then tell me, since when have you liked me?”
She had known Emanuel since birth but when it came to liking him, she could only think back a few years. When she was younger, she didn’t have those kinds of thoughts.
“At fifteen,” Emanuel said.
Nathalie frowned and said, “At that time I had just debuted.”
“At that time I thought I was just a fan,” Emanuel replied.
Nathalie accepted this explanation because at that time she had become the nation’s sweetheart.
“When did you stop being a fan?” Nathalie asked.
“When I turned eighteen,” Emanuel said.
Emanuel was eighteen and Nathalie was fifteen when Nathalie blossomed into a beautiful young woman. Most children experienced their first feelings of love around that age so it made sense.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Nathalie asked.
What Nathalie couldn’t understand the most was why every time Emanuel saw her, he acted like he was angry with her as if she had done something wrong.
“I was afraid of scaring you,” Emanuel explained.
“Do you know how scary it is for someone to be angry with me?”
“I never got angry with you,” Emanuel protested.
“You did! That’s why for awhile I avoided seeing you altogether.”
This cut deep into Emanuel’s heart. He knew exactly what she meant. For awhile there were times where Nathalie would see him, then quickly leave without saying much else afterwards. At the time he thought his feelings were discovered, which made her uncomfortable, causing such an extreme reaction from her part but now he realized that wasn’t the case at all.
Back then he couldn’t control his emotions nor could hide them either, so instead of risking revealing himself too soon or not knowing how to keep his emotions hidden properly caused him great pain during those times.
“I’m sorry about that; it wasn’t intentional.”
“It’s okay; otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”
Emanuel stared at Nathalie intently while they talked.
Her expression was always so vivid, constantly grabbing at his heart.
Emanuel never thought of himself as a greedy person before. He would think about his future with
Nathalie, but only on rare occasions did he allow himself to do so. Most of the time, he was very restrained and didn’t dare to let himself think too much.
He knew that people were greedy and once that desire emerged, it would be uncontrollable. He would rather suffer forever than allow himself to do anything that could hurt Nathalie.
Therefore, most of the time Emanuel suppressed his emotions.
Now Nathalie sat face-to-face with him and asked him these questions. Emanuel even felt like it wasn’t real. He didn’t even dare blink his eyes for fear of misunderstanding her intentions.
In fact, Emanuel really wanted to touch Nathalie but he still couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Nathalie felt a little embarrassed under Emanuel’s gaze. Even though she was used to being stared at by all kinds of eyes, she couldn’t resist Emanuel’s gaze. She rarely felt this shy, but his stare made her blush and feel hot.
Nathalie raised her hand to cover Emanuel’s eyes and said, “Don’t stare at me like that.”
Emanuel replied, “You look good.”
Nathalie’s heart was once again struck by his words. If she didn’t like Emanuel, hearing him say something like that would make her speechless. However, now Nathalie was very clear that she liked
Emanuel. This meant that no matter what he did or said around her would make her happy.
Nathalie took back her hand and met Emanuel’s gaze before saying, “I’ve been thinking about it these past few days and I think I also like you. Otherwise when you scolded me earlier, I wouldn’t have been so angry.”
“I didn’t scold you,” replied Emanuel.
Upon hearing this, Nathalie frowned in a petulant manner and said, “I’m telling you that you did!”
Emanuel stumbled over his words because he really didn’t remember ever scolding Nathalie before.
But as Nathalie had said it, then it must be true.
“I’m sorry,” apologized Emanuel. “I won’t do it again in the future.”
Once again Nathalie found herself being charmed by him without even realizing it. She had wanted to act tough but with just one sentence from him, she couldn’t help but soften up towards him.
“Have you ever secretly dated someone?” asked Nathalie
“No,” answered Emanuel truthfully. If Nathalie wasn’t interested in dating him, then he had already accepted the fact that he wouldn’t date anyone else for the rest of his life.
Nathalie snorted softly before saying, “Well, I think you’re pretty good at flirting.”
Emanuel remained silent. He didn’t know what “flirting” meant nor did he know which sentence made
Nathalie think so. But Emanuel only had one principle: whatever Nathalie said was right. So if Nathalie said he was good at flirting, then indeed he must be good at flirting. Nathalie also realized how much influence she held over Emanuel; whatever she said went!
With a twinkle in her eye, Nathalie continued speaking, “There are some things I need to explain first. I may say I like you, and want to try dating, but due to my job nature, it won’t be possible for us to go public anytime soon. It might take until my thirties or forties before we can go public. Do you think, you can handle waiting?”
“I can take it,” Emanuel said.
He didn’t care about those things at all, what he cared about was only Nathalie.
Nathalie said, “If I don’t make it public, it means that besides our own people, everyone else thinks I’m single and there will be many people pursuing me. Men and women will both come after me. Can you handle that?”
Emanuel was not speaking.
He couldn’t answer this question.
The answer was naturally that he can’t handle that.
However, if he said he can’t handle that anymore, then he will force Nathalie to come out publicly.
He knew how much Nathalie loved her job and how driven she was in her career.
If something must be sacrificed, Emanuel can be sacrificed.
However, if he saw someone else pursuing Nathalie, he really can’t do it.
Nathalie suppressed the laughter that was about to well up and continued, “Oh, by the way, when I’m acting, there are a lot of intimate scenes. Can you handle that?”
Every question Nathalie asked seemed to stab a knife into Emanuel’s heart. He really had no way to answer them. If he had to give a answer, it was naturally unbearable. But what could he do? Force
Nathalie not to do this job anymore? How was that possible? Nathalie had been in the business since she was twelve years old, and even with Miles and Matilda protecting her, she had suffered so much before achieving her current success. Emanuel knew this very well.
It was precisely because of this that for Emanuel, he actually cherished her career more than Nathalie did herself. However, he wasn’t a generous man.
In fact, on this matter, he was very stingy. He liked Nathalie and loved her; his possessiveness towards her was very strong. However, he couldn’t express his possessiveness directly – it would be forcing
Nathalie.
The one thing Emanuel would never do in his life was make Nathalie compromise or back down on anything. But at the same time, it wasn’t possible for him to generously say that he didn’t care about it either.
For a moment, the issue seemed stuck in an impasse.
Nathalie waited half a day for Emanuel’s response before chuckling softly and saying, “If you’re like this, then I really have to wonder if you don’t actually like me.”
Although Nathalie hadn’t experienced any serious romantic relationships before now (although she’d acted them out), even those adolescent relationships were forms of love where both parties were extremely selfish.
Emanuel made Nathalie feel as though no matter what she did or how unreasonable the request may be, he would agree with everything just so long as it meant helping her achieve what she wanted. But by doing so, they were only enabling each other’s selfishness without considering how their actions affected one another.
After remaining silent for quite some time, Emanuel finally spoke honestly, “Nathalie, I can’t tell you I don’t care because I really do care. I can’t stand hearing these things from you, and when I see you holding hands with someone else on stage, it makes me angry.”
“But, I know how much your career means to you, and if I love you, then accepting your career should come along with loving who are as well. So please forgive me, but saying that I’m not bothered by all of these things is something I cannot say.”
God knew how disgusted he felt when he said these words. He felt like he was kidnapping Nathalie by forcing her to choose between her career and him. No matter how noble his words sounded, it couldn’t change the truth inside.
Emanuel didn’t look at Nathalie anymore. Instead, he lowered his eyelashes to cover his gaze.
Nathalie listened carefully to Emanuel’s words and suddenly burst out laughing.
“Congratulations, you barely passed,” Nathalie said. “Although I forced you to say it, I appreciate your honesty. If you had told me that you were generous and didn’t care about this, then I wouldn’t have chosen to be with you.”
Emanuel suddenly lifted his eyelids in shock as he looked at Nathalie.
Did she really agree to be with him?
Nathalie looked at Emanuel and said, “I do care about my career, but I won’t limit myself to it. Right now, I make a living off of my fans. Maybe being in a relationship will have some impact on me. It might disappoint some people or even lead to attacks against me. But the truth is, I don’t really care.”
Emanuel felt heartbroken just hearing that someone might attack Nathalie.
Sensing his distress, Nathalie gave him a reassuring smile.
“Do you know why I took three years off work to go back to school?” she continued.
Emanuel didn’t answer.
“It’s because I don’t want to be just an idol or a female star,” Nathalie explained. “Those are all titles given by others who like me and can easily take them away when they don’t like me anymore. But the skills I’ve learned are what keep me going in this industry. I simply enjoy being an actress and not being worshipped or making money in showbiz.”